Post navigation

I know, I’m AWOL for, like, ever, and I show up with a zucchini bread? I should be banned from blogging, but really, this isn’t so much for blogging purposes but for archival and word processing purposes. I mean, I don’t even have a GOOD picture! (But I did figure out how to use that annoying and almost worthless camera on top of my screen.) Yes, super lame. But I have my reasons.

First, I have a new laptop without a word processing program on it yet, so I’m using this. Second, my laptop isn’t in the dungeon (like the dinosaur) so I can use it without being banished from the kingdom and fearing I’ll never see the sun again. Third, I have a mountain of summer squash things that is beginning to take over my house, so testing this recipe to death gives me a productive project. So, fourth, this is just my first incarnation of this recipe. I promise you, I’ll mess with it at least three more times. I can’t seem to help myself, though my kids ADORED this recipe and it wasn’t overly sticky, sweet, mushy or too bready. It was just right. And finally, since I’ll be doorbell ditching these behemoth Viking club-sized objects, the least I can do is provide a delicious and healthy recipe to use them up. Yeah, there’s no pretending it’s someone else leaving them. I’m the only nerd in our townhouse community with a garden so it’s kind of obvious.

Instructions
1. Grease two 8×4 loaf pans & preheat oven to 350 (365 on mine).
2. Add flax seeds and warm water to blender, blend until combined.
3. To blender jar, add sugar, oil, applesauce, and vanilla and blend until combined.
4. In a separate large bowl, stir remaining dry ingredients.
5. Pour wet ingredients into dry, add zucchini, stir until combined, but not thoroughly mixed. Don’t over mix or you’ll have dense bread, so moist but still lumpy.
6. Carefully fold in optional chocolate chips, nuts or dried fruit. Divide batter between prepared pans.
7. Bake at 350 (365 in my oven) for 50-55 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool a few minutes before slicing.

**Notes: obviously, use the sugars you’re most comfortable with. I use Wholesome Sweeteners and I like the results in everything I make. I’ll be trying this with GF flour soon, so if it works, I might let you know. And your zucchini can make or break this. The spongy middle of the giant ones isn’t a pleasant addition to this, so I say just cut it out then shred.

Like this:

I’m moving back here to goodcleanfood.wordpress.com because life is simpler here and right now, I need simpler. If you need a recipe, it should still be searchable and you can always find me on my facebook page. I’ll still be an absent blogger, but my posts will stay put!

Happy summer. We’re off for a long vacation if my kids can get healthy fast enough!

Like this:

Welcome!!! You made it. Are you stuffed yet? You just started and you’re already full? Well this isn’t going to help much since it’s almost like dinner all by itself, but since it’s only virtual, your eyes won’t fill up. As I wrote this, I realized this is like Prom for food bloggers, isn’t it?Gasp, I speak craziness! But think about it, we’ve dressed ourselves up in our finest attire, spent hours on our hair, posed for pictures, and thrown all caution to the wind. This should be fun…

In reflection, I wish that instead of going Prom in high school, I’d gone hiking. So today we’re in Bryce Canyon today checking out hoodoos and red rocks and stuff, or so I hope. It’s a last minute, much needed getaway, part of our attempt to make life more authentic, but last minute trips require lots of frantic work I’m hanging out at home with three sick kids, thoroughly enjoying the VVP, but spent the week planning a fun (and at least temporarily failed) family getaway. In the midst of all that planning, I had the shocking realization a few days ago that despite making bread multiple times a week, I had nothing ready to bring to the party. Total party foul. And my husband had already made, photographed and enjoyed his Authentic Ginger Beer and he’s a total blog beginner.

So I closed my eyes really tight and imagined what would be yummy. And I ran out to the front and picked some herbs. And while my kids made tents out of blankets and houses out of blocks, I made bread out of what we had. And doggoneit, it’s amazing!

Confession: I had great plans of showing how this is done on the grill. I mean, it’s grilling season, hot season, don’t have a good air conditioner season, so I was going to make everyone happy with BREAD ON THE GRILL! But alas, I ran out of propane during the preheat. So, boring oven bread it is. And with that, the whole puffy bread thing failed because I had to re-preheat and well, let’s just say, my timing got off – never good with bread. Anyway, look for grilled bread later this spring. I will perfect it, at least for me.

In your mixer, mix flours, yeast & salt using the dough hook. With mixer on low, add 2 ½ cups warm water and sugar and mix until the dough just comes together. Without taking the whole thing apart, cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a towel and let it rest for 15 minutes or so.

While the dough is resting, quickly sauté the kale just until it is bright green and slightly tender.

Knead the dough on medium-low speed until smooth and elastic, adding more water or flour as needed. The dough should be pretty tacky, but still clear the sides of the bowl. Add herbs, olives, tomatoes and cooked kale to your mixer bowl and knead on low until just combined.

Turn dough out onto a silicone baking mat or a floured surface and knead just until everything comes together in a ball. Place dough in a large, lightly oiled bowl and wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm place until doubled, 1 to 1 ½ hours.

Turn dough back out onto your work surface and deflate it gently – dimple, mash, whatever. Divide into two parts and either roll into rolls, or shape carefully into two tight balls. For rolls, either space on a baking sheet lined with parchment/Silpat, or nestle nicely in a lightly oiled 8×8 (9) or 9×13 (18); for boules, place on parchment or your silicone mat. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise again until doubled, about an hour.

Preheat baking stone in the oven for at least 30 minutes if possible at 500F. Add hot water to a roasting pan on the bottom rack and put your bread/rolls in the oven on your pizza stone. If it’s on parchment, leave it on there and let it bake that way. Bake at super hot until spotty and golden, then turn your temp down to 400F, baking another 25 -30 minutes until crusty, golden and beautiful.

Let it cool until it’s cool, or not like me and rip a roll off and dip it in calorie laden olive oil. It’s totally worth it.

Thanks for stopping by! It was lovely having a visit. Next stop, more bread, and then many, many more VVP specialties.

So, this recipe has been in the making for months, meaning I’ve been making it for months. That said, I might have lost that last stubborn baby-five but for this cake. I might also have gotten more sleep. But I WOULD NOT have been happier. You see, there is something wonderful about this unparalleled deliciousness (unless you royally mess it up like I did once, but I blame adding cocoa powder – requested by the birthday girl but NOT GOOD, and substituting frozen strawberries when I found my JUST BOUGHT strawberries were moldy).

So, let me tell you about this cake. It started long ago before I “made the change”. It had eggs and sour cream and butter and all of that white flour yumminess, so of course it was tasty. I put blueberries and peaches in the middle one time and almost attacked my husband when he asked for some. And then the recipe got shoved to the bottom of the pile because I wasn’t ready to figure the veganizing of this one out.

Well, I finally did it. And every time I’ve used strawberries because it’s Spring and they get all jammy and yummy. In the past I’ve read about things that tasted jammy, and they didn’t sound good. I don’t really like most jam. But this is different and unparalleled gooey, sweet, strawberryey jamminess. Just believe me, you want some.

Because I’ve tried it many different ways, I’ll include all of the workable options with the best ones first. I’ll even put in the non-vegan ingredients for you omnis, because really, butter just tastes better than the substitutes. They are, after all, “substitutes”. (Apparently my palate is still detoxing and may be for the rest of my life.)

A quick note on fats: Butter, Vegan Butter/Earth Balance/margarine, coconut oil, and coconut butter are all tasty options, but they obviously each have a different outcome. I would stick first with homemade vegan butter, then coconut oil/Earth Balance, then coconut butter. Coconut butter makes a more dense cake – still delicious, but mixed halfsies with coconut oil, it could be good and cheaper than the subs.

Oh yeah, and it’s a broken heart cake because for the life of me, I cannot manage to get it out of the pan without at least a little break, and sometimes it’s a big one. But when using 100% whole grain, that’s not a bad thing (except when I eat all of the broken parts…) and pretty remarkable that it stays together as well as it does.

The internet is LOADED with too much information, so much that I have a hard time sifting. Let me sift a little for you. And hopefully, you’re not completely sick of white stuff in jars since I keep posting them. But don’t worry, real food is coming. I’m just setting the stage for future greatness, giving you the tools if you will, to make wonderful things soon.

So first, have you ever found yourself cleaning out your cupboard or pantry and realized you had three cans of veggie broth, or that jar of roasted red peppers you knew was back there had been tucked away for longer than you’d thought – like two years? Did you know that the best by date isn’t always the definitive date? Yes, you probably do, but I still have friends for whom this is new information and so, I share.

StillTasty.com not only tells you how much longer your canned goods are good for (sometimes two or three years!), but your fruits and vegetables, and well, everything other edible in your kitchen. There is so much information on this site, you could spend days and still probably learn something new, or at least novel. I will confess, there are many items lacking, BUT the catalog is continually increasing.

So, if after checking StillTasty you find you probably shouldn’t use that tempeh that ended up in the back corner of your fridge for six months, there is yet another site I frequent. It is where I go when I realize I am missing what I THINK is a vital ingredient.

Unfortunately, the URL is www.foodsubs.com rather than its name, but I love the URL since it’s easier to remember when I’m looking for a substitute ingredient. It’s not as easy to navigate as I would like, but the search bar is pretty helpful. One of the best parts is that some recommended substitutes have how-to directions!

coconut butter To make your own: Toast grated coconut over low heat in a frying pan until lightly browned, then whirl it (while still hot) in a blender until it has the consistency of a smooth paste.

There were no pictures, but hey, those are pretty straight-forward directions and I’m not as dumb as I might look sometimes. So, I tossed some shredded, unsweetened, dried coconut and did just that. Heated it and popped it in the Vitamix and started it running. I was surprised by how it transformed from a pile of dried coconut into a creamy, SUPER-HOT, fatty quasi-liquid. It almost had the consistency of what happens when you mix cornstarch and water – a liquid-solid. It was also very much like butter (though very coconutty) and not anything I imagined should have worked. As it cooled, it hardened much like coconut oil and works like butter in recipes. Cool, huh?

I have since repeated the procedure with more precise measurements to be more helpful. I know I would have appreciated a bit more info when I first tried it. I don’t think a regular blender could handle this, and I recommend a VitaMix because I found the tamper VERY useful. A BlendTec definitely has the power, it just requires more stopping and starting as you stir the contents.

Here are the details in a better form.

Toasting coconut

Toasted coconut to VitaMix jar

Early cavitation of coconut

Hot and starting to break down coconut

Coconut butter all mixed and melted

Homemade Coconut ButterAdapted from Cook’s Thesaurus
Yield: 2 cups

4 c. shredded, unsweetened, dried coconut

Over medium heat in a large non-stick skillet, allow coconut to LIGHTLY toast, stirring or flipping frequently to keep from burning. (The goal is primarily to get it hot, but a bit of nuttiness from the toasting improves the flavor.) Quickly add the coconut to power blender, and turn it on and up. Using the tamper if you have one, push the coconut into the blades, adjusting blender speed in order to keep the coconut moving. You may need to stop and start, especially if you don’t have a tamper; pulsing it and shaking the jar will be helpful! This will take a few minutes and the contents will get HOT, as they reach maximum smoothness. The coconut will start moving itself as it begins to liquefy, at which point you’re close. Stop occasionally and check consistency – it should be quite smooth.

When it’s done, it’s done! Pour into a clean container and allow to cool at room temperature. If you’re really ambitious, pour into a muffin tin to get ½ cup portions because it’s pretty tough to break up after it cools.

It’s race season again – regardless of your sport. It happens every spring and like recent years, I’m feeling left out. It’s my own doing, of course, and I could definitely make running or cycling a priority, but right now, I’m not quite there. Sincerely, though, Cheers to those of you who are on it. I will get there, but I’ll be a few months behind and probably a bit late for the races and events (unless I hit some of the fabulous autumn ones, which is possible).

Down the Tube

Since it’s race season, I want to share with you my (quasi)famousPina Coloda Larabar bites. Erika even called me out once, so I’m finally making good on this. They are, of course, a knock off from the real deal, but if you really want to know, these are better. I’m not a fan of most real Larabars. They’re too sweet, too gummy, and too old. That whole packaging thing makes them darn convenient, but not as tasty as they should be.

Freeze-dried pineapple

For this, you’ll need an ingredient that can be a bit tricky to find, I admit. FREEZE-DRIED PINEAPPLE. But it’s worth looking, and I recommend some of the “food storage” websites. I found mine through Thrive when they did a gig at Costco, and no, I’m no affiliated with them at all. But you can also find them on Amazon, and check your local health food store. Everything else is usually found in a well-stocked whole-foods plant-based kitchen. I apparently really like dashes(-).

Pineapple Coconut Larabar Bites

I rolled mine into balls. For photography’s sake, probably not my best bet since they look like meatballs, but for convenience’s sake, super handy. My kids love these, though I think they do find them a bit too sweet at times (no, my kids aren’t average),

Larabar Base – almond and dates

These are Raw, Plant-based, and Gluten-Free if you use GF ingredients, which they should be. And they’re excellent training or race food.

Put everything in your food processor and let it rip, pulsing as needed. If, like mine, your dates are too dry, add just a little water (1T at a time) through the feed tube of your food processor to get it moving. It should ball up nicely and be super sticky. Either press into a well-oiled or parchment-lined 8×8 pan, or wet your hands and roll into balls. (I used my 1oz. scooper and these are a bit larger than I’d like.) Chill and cut into 1 ½” squares or transfer bites to an airtight container. Enjoy – they keep for awhile if you forget about them, but I don’t think you will.

Do you ever find yourself starving at lunch time and the peanut butter and jelly you’re making for your kids looks dreadful? Turning to your fridge you find, well, nothing. Nothing but a bunch of randomness that makes no sense in terms of a “normal” meal? Or maybe I’m the only one. This here salad is the result of such an afternoon and a template for future afternoons, when you know you need the energy and stamina that comes from whole foods but can’t seem to put it together.

I love the word Upcycling. Upcycling describes how you and your partner are more than the sum of the two parts, or how that almond milk box was transformed from future trash into a bird-feeder. Sure, you and your milk carton were both functional before the change, but now you’ve become magical. It’s so much more than just reusing.

So, an upcycled salad is just the mixing of ho-hum parts to make beautiful epicurean harmonies in a matter of minutes. Here’s how it works in my house. My fridge usually has a cooked grain and various and sundry vegetables can be found lying around. If you aren’t accustomed to having lots of vegetables around, it’s time for you to give it a try. Buy things you normally wouldn’t when they’re on sale and try them. I generally also have a random salad dressing I experimented with or some sort of leftover sauce. Right now there is a quasi-creamy balsamic and a raw waldorf. And what kind of a hippie would I be without nuts and dried berries stored in the nooks and crannies of my community kitchen (it’s a small community, but a community nevertheless)?

That’s all a grain salad needs to come together. And when you stir it together, the creative genius inside you will sing songs of happiness, the writer’s block that has plagued you for 12 years will lift, and your children will behave. Or, perhaps, you will at least feel better than if you’d had that peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

*You may notice the awesome green stuff on top. It was a rushed, and perhaps failed, attempt to make coconut cilantro chutney from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, but on this application, it was AWESOME!

Recent Stuff

About me

Just trying to keep my edge with three kids, a minivan, a townhouse in suburbia, a community garden plot, a school in my house, and some ridiculous ideas. Once I went to culinary school, was a lawyer, got a degree in horticulture, was a make-up artist, and schlepped newspapers for cold-hard cash as a kid. I will never stop learning.

About this place

A constantly evolving home for good healthful living! A primarily plant-based approach, but the evolution is just that - evolving as needed. Right now, it's a more-plants-the-better kinda place, circumnavigating around my three wild kids, finding exercise zen, and sometimes random bits about the rest of our lives!